Dragon Delves is out in the wild now. This book kicks off a new era of adventures for D&D, and it’s got some ideas that really sizzle.
Dragon Delves goes pretty hard, all things considered. It kind of has to. It’s the first book of the 5.5E era, and it’s going to set the room temperature for things to come. And it’s a premise with a lot of potential. Ten adventures, ten dragons, take the game’s most iconic creatures and show how they can be used at every level.
Although, there’s a bit of an asterisk there, because it’s not every level. This adventure anthology only goes up to 12. It is rare to see an adventure go past that, from WotC at least. High level adventures are tricky to create for the every-DM, I guess. I don’t know that I wholly agree, but the fact remains you’ll only get up to level 12. Which has some unfortunate implications for the book.
Despite that equivocating, though, the adventures themselves are good. There are some fun ideas on display here. If you’re looking for a good, dragon-filled romp, this book may well be what you’re looking for. Let’s take a closer look!
Dragon Delves: First Impressions Review
To start with, this is a book that wants to capture the idea of D&D in a little capsule. A band of heroes facing down a mighty dragon? That’s what D&D is all about. And this book hopes to deliver you ten different options for finding ten different dragons and taking each as they come.
Dragon Delves wants to reemphasize the “& Dragons” half of Dungeons & Dragons. And having that goal really helps the book, I feel like. Because this is adventure anthology coalesces around the theme, strengthening its ideas and the heart of its adventures. Other adventure anthologies, while good, don’t feel as connected.
And I think it’s because you know you’re going to have a dragon crop up somewhere, it’s in the name. It gives each adventure a sense of belonging and flow. This is one of the few adventure anthlogy books that I feel like actually could be run as an individual campaign. And all because it wants to capture how, in its words, “[dragons] link players across time and space, from the first adventurers who forayed into the gloom more than 50 years ago to players beginning their first adventure now.”
“Dragon Delves is a celebration of this shared tradition. Each of the ten adventures in this book features a dragon in a lair. Designed for characters of levels 1 through 12, the adventures offer a range of challenges, from defeating evil dragons to working with good dragons, as well as navigating more complicated moral dilemmas. The dungeons where the dragons make their lairs range from cavern complexes to ruined cities and more.”
But, you might rightly be wondering, how does it actually hold up? It has clever ideas, but do they pay off? Can you, the DM, pick up the book and get your players excited for it?
Meddling in the Affairs of Dragons
Overall, I tend to think so. I think where the book is strongest is when it’s giving personality and narrative to the dragons. In some of our previews for the newly released book, you can read how Dragon Delves gives dragon lairs a better sense of narrative weight in the story. Or you could read about how metallic dragons find their way to the center stage in novel ways as part of this adventure.
You’ll find a lot of interesting stories about dragons. From the first adventure, which details an evil dragon’s legacy, to one of the mid-level adventures, which details an evil dragon’s legacy, to the highest level adventure, which details an evil dragon’s legacy. And though I’m being flippant, I have to give credit where it’s due, each of these adventures feels different.
There’s a lot of focuson the legacy of dragons. On the great wyrms of the ancient past. Frequently in this book, you’ll come across a n area that was once terrorized or protected by an ancient dragon. And I think a big reason for that is related in part to the limitations of level and the tiers of D&D.
Dragon Delves – Little Dragons at the Heart of Big Adventures
In the DMG there’s this great page that talks about why it’s okay to say “no” sometimes as a DM. The rules of the game aren’t meant to be a physics engine. You can’t have peasant rail guns just because the rules can be read in such a way that you totally could. But even with that warning, the rules of D&D inform its stories.
Case in point, you never fight anything more than an adult dragon. The one time you get to face off an ancient dragon, the adventure makes it pretty easy to mitigate that (and it does so in a very clever way). But it just feels weird to look at a book all about dragons and their place in adventures, and to see wyrmlings and young dragons for most of it.
There’s a lot of emphasis on these great wyrms, but they only show up briefly in the adventures. You never get to actually really fight one, unless you screw up really really bad. Which, again, great that it’s an option. And I feel like the anthology does a lot of work to try and give the sense of the biggest and baddest dragons in the Monster Manual. But it feels a little strange, even so. You don’t get the most iconic part of D&D, the cover image of some huge red dragon bearing down on tiny but determined adventurers.
It feels a little strange. But other than that, the book is solid. It would be nice to see some customized dragon stats—especially since the adventures give their dragons a ton of personality. But I think that’s something that the DM is probably going to do anyway.
And the adventures are more than enough to get the inspiration juices flowing. So if you DM for your party, or know a DM who is really into dragons, this books is a great one to add to the ol’ collection.
Dragons everywhere, but no advice on how to train one!
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